"For some time now, I've been working with members of In Situ team to integrate their Metisse software in Mandriva Linux and it is really exciting. Mandriva will announce very soon (today or tomorrow) Metisse will be part of Mandriva Spring 2007 and is also available as a Live CD based on Mandriva 2007.0 and GNOME right now so everybody can try Metisse right now and report bugs."

This looks like an underpowered beryl or compiz. Although im sure there is some nice new features, wouldn't it be better to just make a plugin for beryl? Although it is not stable yet, it is maturing quickly.

I'm sorry, but after watching the videos it looks like it's taking some useful but unoriginal ideas (Zoom/Tile = Expose) and some new but useless ideas(Mirrored windows) and making a window manager. My other concern is that if it doesn't utilize the 3D extension of your video card, won't it just be a CPU hog?

>>My other concern is that if it doesn't utilize the 3D extension of your video card, won't it just be a CPU hog?<<
No you guessed wrong. This is clearly stated in the FAQ.

Do I need a high-end 3D graphical card to use metisse?
No. Metisse uses basic openGL commands for most of its feature and can run on entry level 3D graphic cards. For instance, metisse is able to run (slowly) on PIII 450Mhz with TNT2 graphical chipset.

<brewmastre: I'm sorry, but after watching the videos it looks like it's taking some useful but unoriginal ideas (Zoom/Tile = Expose) and some new but useless ideas(Mirrored windows) and making a window manager.

You don't have to be sorry for being confused. The bird's eye function is a full-screen desktop switcher, not a task switcher, with added functionality for app preview. I'm not quite sure about the usefulness of the mirror function but i guess you can get it without extra effort from the rotating function, for which i *can* see uses. Your other concern has already been addressed.

I haven't seen the copy & paste function yet, DailyMotion seems to choke.

I apologize for making an incorrect comparison to Expose...I should have said Spaces. Still not an original idea.

Honestly, anything that is being worked into Mandriva is going to fail. Just like if it were being built into Yellow Dog. Two Red Hat/Fedora distros have have done nothing but get slower over the years.

A boom boom bâ
Can you hear my heart beat in this world?
A boom boom bâ
Do you know that behind all these words
A boom boom bâ
Lies a deep desire Kamélé hé?
A boom boom bâ
Mé kouman mé fora y bamê
Are my dreams to be all I can do?
Lay o lay above, lay o lay below
And you said "I knew we should find a new way"
Mé kouman mé fora y bamê
Kélé, filla, saba, nani, norou

Time and again it occurs to me that when it comes to graphical desktops, screenshots are meaningless. The look, yes, but the feel, you can't communicate that by screenshots - nor videos.

I've seen a couple of AIGLX/XGL Beryl/Compiz screenshots videos (it's hard to avoid them in any case) and I thought the cube and wobble stuff was crap, and the Expose effect was unstable as compared to OS X. When I did try it (after finally discovering there was an open driver for my ATi card), it was (felt) much better than it looked on the internet, because of the way "Expose" actually worked on my computer, even from a live cd.

Still don't like the cube though, but also the Alt+Tab, and the look of the window lists are quite nice.